Canadian City Uses Drone To Chase Off Geese 196
LeadSongDog writes "The Ottawa Citizen reports on an enterprising private contractor who has been hired by a city government in Canada to drive geese off its island beaches using a small, remote-controlled drone. 'It’s proving amazingly effective, said Orléans Coun. Bob Monette. The place used to be haunted by as many as 140 geese, which can eat several pounds of grass in a day and poop out nearly as much in waste. “Now we’re down to anywhere from 15 to 20 on a daily basis,” Monette said. The weapon the city’s deployed is a “hexcopter,” a remote-controlled chopper with rotors that can hover, soar, circle and — most importantly — scoot along just above the ground, scaring the bejesus out of dozing geese. It’s operated by contractor Steve Wambolt, a former IT worker who launched his own business after one too many layoffs. “When he takes it out, they put their backs up straight and they’re watching,” Monette said. “When he starts it and it goes up off the ground, they sort of walk into a formation, and as soon as it starts moving, they all take off and they don’t come back until the next day.”'"
Re:This isn't going to end well, you realize (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is kind of like predicting colder temperatures in winter.
Hell, I was in Myrtle Beach this year ... and there they were: Canadian Geese, honking, eating, and pooping, and then honking, eating and pooping some more for good measure. Because, well, that's what they do.
Re:Unconstitutional Drone Strike on Canadian Geese (Score:5, Insightful)
this isn't affecting the migration just dispersing the floc from a beach/park there is no shortage of available space on the river or bay for them to move on too, they just hang out there because people leave stuff for them to eat, if anything this is beneficial to the birds also to keep them a little further away from the public
"Drone" vs "R/C Plane"? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Are we at peak drone? (Score:4, Insightful)
Is a model plane now a drone? What about a paper airplane? Is an RC car a "land drone"? If I have a Capsela model in the bathtub with me, did I create a "water drone"?
It's a tsunami of hyperbole.
Re:Unconstitutional Drone Strike on Canadian Geese (Score:5, Insightful)
You won't think Canada Geese are so much of a goddamned treasure when you live in an area where they stay year-round, grow to flocks of hundreds, poison every waterway in sight, and leave a carpet of goose-shit everywhere. They're a fucking nuisance in a LOT of places, and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act desperately needs to be amended to make it legal to kill the fucking things. They have WAY overpopulated in large portions of North America.
Drone....not really? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it just me, or are we starting to use "drone" for pretty much anything that doesn't have a pilot actually sitting in it today?
AFAIK, "drone" is really an autonomous vehicle that for at least SOME of its flight time, it's not directly under pilot control.
I mean, it sure SOUNDS a lot cooler to say they use a "drone" than "a big radio control plane".
They come back the next day (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Are we at peak drone? (Score:4, Insightful)
The goal is to make the word drone meaningless. So when the government starts using police and spy agency drones against citizens we won't consider it a big deal.
Re:Unconstitutional Drone Strike on Canadian Geese (Score:4, Insightful)
No the problem is that we humans have killed off all their natural predators and don't have the balls to man-up and replace them. We have the same problem with deer in the area. People have stopped hunting deer, we've killed off all the wolves (because we tend not to like the idea of them attacking our kids and pets and shit)--and so they overpopulated and start becoming a nuisance.
This will fail. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Unconstitutional Drone Strike on Canadian Geese (Score:4, Insightful)
These things are a menace. I lived in Colorado and they would routinely plant themselves into our apartment complex public space, making it unusable for long stretches of winter.
If *you* think it's unusable now, how do you think the Geese feel about an apartment complex taking over *their* public space?
If you were stupid enough to wander into the park area, a host of them would waddle up to you and attack, and they left a huge amount of green goose crap all over the place. If I had thought of using one of those little toy helicopters at the time to scare em off, I would have.
I think the problem with the drone plan is that just like how the Geese got used to humans in your apartment complex and now show no fear of them, they'll eventually get used to the drones unless the drones start attacking and killing them.
Re:Unconstitutional Drone Strike on Canadian Geese (Score:4, Insightful)
Do you have any idea how many millions of square miles in the US (much less Canada) are untouched by humans? Well over 90% of the US is undeveloped land.
Those are two entirely different things. Untouched by humans would indicate that the land is in its natural state, and if you use that definition it is a lot closer to 0% than 90%. It may be undeveloped and unused, but the wetlands have been mostly destroyed, and the megafauna slaughtered. These both have a massive effect on the ecology, sometimes for hundreds or even thousands of miles around.
Why not a simple analog solution? (Score:2, Insightful)